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Midwife Anna has a little girly, sing-song voice. She’s sweet and is good-naturedly teased by her colleagues on the maternity wing, who feel she would be the perfect chatelaine of a country house.

Anna is endlessly kind to Mel, who’s having her first baby, anxious boyfriend James and mum Jean by her side. Like a dainty cheerleader, Anna rallies the sweating, heaving mum-to-be: “Just keep deep-breathing, the baby’s lovely and low, darling… Big push down! Keep it going! Chin on chest!” Jean is Mel’s long-term foster mum and the pair are touchingly close: “I’m who I am today because of Jean.” For her part, Jean is highly protective of her daughter, particularly since Mel started going out with the baby’s father, James, a bit of a ne’er-do-well. He, however, is determined to be a good dad.

Meanwhile, Mormon Leah, who’s having her second baby, is begging for an epidural. When her baby finally pops out, she wonders in panic: “He won’t go back in, will he?”

About this programme

11/14. A Mormon couple prepare for the birth of their second child, a boy. Leah describes how her only ambition at school was to one day become a mother, while her husband Richard tries to persuade her to carry on his family's tradition of naming a male child after its father. Meanwhile, Mel and James are anticipating their first baby, and after both having difficult early lives they are eager to prove they will be good parents.